Lewis, Clive Staples

(1898-1963)

   A literary critic, novelist (The Chronicles of Narnia, a seven-book sequence of children's stories, is an allegory of the Christian faith), and the foremost British Christian apologist of the twentieth century, Lewis was for some years an atheist, but gradually made a pilgrimage back to Christianity, a choice that he described in Surprised by Joy and defended in Mere Christianity. This influential apologetic work includes a popular form of the moral argument as well as his oftquoted 'liar, lunatic, or lord' trichotomy faced by those considering the claims of Christ. Lewis's powerful theodicy was presented in The Problem of Pain and supplemented by other works such as The Great Divorce, which addresses the problem of Hell. Finally, Miracles develops a penetrating critique of naturalism, and includes Lewis's important argument from reason. In this argument Lewis points out that the naturalist's picture of the world allows only for efficient causation. But this excludes the possibility of belief from rational causes, which undermines the epistemic justification for our beliefs, including belief in naturalism. Lewis is famous for his vivid writing in which he persuasively puts forward the case for Christianity while ably criticising alternatives. As a result, he has influenced a whole generation of Christians including important popular apologists like Harry Blamires and Francis Schaeffer.

   See apologetics; God, arguments for the existence of; theology, natural

   Further reading: Christopher and Ostling 1975; Duriez 2002; Lewis, C. S. 1940, 1947 and 1952; Reppert 2003; Yolton 1993